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Women's Tennis falls to Cal 5-2

TEMPE, Ariz. - The No. 15 Women's Tennis team fell on Saturday to the No. 7 California Golden Bears 5-2 in Tempe. With the loss the Devils fall to 12-4 on the season.

ASU gained the first half of the doubles point at No. 3, when senior Wendy Pilecka paired up with freshman Lauren Megale to knock off Cal's Rachael Dillon and Bojana Bobusic 8-4. The switch in the team was made after senior Jessica Leitch suffered an injury in her singles match against Stanford on Friday. Freshmen Kelcy McKenna and Micaela Hein showed poise and stepped up to the task of playing at No. 2, defeating Marina Coussou and Claire Ilcinkas 8-6 to clinch the doubles point and their 13th win of the season. After a tough battle at No. 1, Laila and Nadia Abdala succumbed to Susie Babos and Stephanie Kusano 8-7 after the doubles point had already been decided.

The singles matches were hard-fought, with the momentum swinging back and forth between the two teams. Kelcy McKenna overcame Babos at the No. 2 spot 6-3 7-5 to put the Devils up 2-0 in the match score, but the Golden Bears would retaliate. Bobusic and Kusano put the Golden Bears on the map with straight-set wins over Pilecka and Brown respectively, at No. 6 and No. 5. Cal went up 3-2 in the match tally after Ilcinkas rallied back from a set down to defeat Hein 2-6 6-1 6-1 at the No. 4 spot. The match hung in the balance with sisters N. Abdala and L. Abdala battling it out at No. 1 and No. 3. The Golden Bears clinched the match on a stray backhand by N. Abdala, who fell to Coussou 6-1 4-6 6-4. Visico came out on top against L. Abdala, winning 3-6 7-5 7-5 and elevating the Golden Bears to a 5-2 victory.

'I thought it was a tough weekend for us and we competed well. We are going to keep working hard and improving until we reach our goals, which for now is to host a regional. Stanford and Cal are both great teams; they fight really hard and we battled hard against them. We came out of this weekend knowing that each of us can play with a lot of heart and we can trust in each other to fight until the last ball is hit,' McKenna said after the match.

Next up the Devils travel to Washington and Washington State to continue their Pac-10 schedule. The Women's Tennis team would like to thank everyone who came out to support them this weekend, especially the Whiteman Walk-ons for their continued support.